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ufjschool / ob-s14

Orange & Blue issue for Spring 2014 -- Energy
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Edit "dawson.md" #27

Closed jrthieke closed 2 years ago

ghost commented 10 years ago

Finished editing this.

jrthieke commented 10 years ago

Hey Amber, I was just reading over your story. I looked over the edits that Brittany made, and here are some additional comments I thought:

  1. I agree with Brittany that some more explanation of Crossfit is needed. It seems you take for granted that your readers know what that entails, when it’s possible few of them actually will. It’s not until late in the story when you mention specific workouts (the Diane) so that we get any idea of what these exercises might be like. Maybe a brief history of Crossfit as a craze could help shed some light?
  2. You have a sentence that just ends abruptly in the middle: “I spoke with one Crossfit trainer who allowed me to enter her life for a day, and explain the – ” Where was that going?
  3. Again, with the story centered on Crossfit and a personal experience of working out, you need to go hard on the visuals and details. Specific workouts, specific foods, rituals and sensations immediately post-workout are essential and should be focused on. Currently, you have less of those things and more of generic quotes about “working hard” and how much she loves it. You say you plan on doing some more reporting and actually following her workouts; make sure you focus on really showing her workouts, and not telling about how much she likes them or that they’re hard or other stuff like that.
  4. Between Starkey and your planned source at Gator Crossfit, that’s two sources. Maybe a good third source could be someone from UF’s athletic training department, as an expert source who could provide an opinion on the beneficence of Crossfit workouts? If you feel you need another source of course; if you think it’s good as is don’t worry, but I think a source like that could give some added depth.
  5. To sum up, I think you have a good foundation for a story, but it needs to be less anecdotal and more sensuous. In a story about rigorous workouts and training, you should want the readers to feel some of that burn. You can do that with detailed descriptions of lots of different workouts (maybe a sidebar too for that?), graphic descriptions of your subject’s workouts (probably good lede material there too) and other stuff like diet and rituals, with comparisons to “normal” people’s routines. This will really immerse the readers in just how demanding this fitness program is.

Those are just some of the thoughts I had. Hope the rest of your reporting goes well and I look forward to reading your finished product!